The Real Housewives of New Jersey

Entertainment WeeklyKen Tucker

On its lacquered surface, New Jersey is The Sopranos with five variations on Adriana. But dig a bit under these women’s verbal clichés and you glimpse lives that are rooted in an earthier, more clear-eyed view of the world than the other Housewives series.

New York Daily NewsDavid Hinckley

Tuesday night’s premiere packs a lot of trash into 42 minutes, between the quips about “jewelry whores” and an almost pathological concern with whose “bubbies” are and aren’t authentic. It plants the first seeds of drama, too.

The New York TimesAlessandra Stanley

Housewives of New Jersey is more farcical, less phony and a lot more fun.

Boston GlobeJoanna Weiss

Their lack of self-awareness is intoxicating; it makes the premiere the most engrossing hour of pure TV escapism I've seen in a very long time.

Washington PostTom Shales

Whatever else it is, the show is supremely entertaining. Smartly edited and cleverly constructed--the George Washington Bridge serving as a visual transition--the series marks another auspicious entry to television's vast stockpile of Guilty Pleasures.

VarietyBrian Lowry

Playing to the cameras, even many elements that feel slightly staged (including convenient intra-housewife feuding) prove nearly irresistible, again reminding us that horrible people you'd never want to associate with are often the spice of reality. This show puts the Bada-Bing in Bravo.

NewsdayValerie Kellogg

If you thought the "Real Housewives" of New York City, Atlanta and Orange County were outrageous, you haven't seen anything yet.

Philadelphia InquirerJonathan Storm

Appalling or phony--one conclusion must be true, and either one underscores the fundamental question about these Real Housewives shows: Why would anyone want to watch them?

SlateTroy Patterson

When I say that The RH of NJ is the most synthetic installment of the show yet produced.

Wall Street JournalNancy DeWolf Smith

Suffice it to say that Bravo has found yet another group of not-very-appealing women to represent their gender and, more broadly speaking, the lifestyle of the heterosexual cheeseball.